Marchwarden: Hidden Hero - Chapter 9
Title: Marchwarden: Hidden Hero - Chapter 9
Author: kenazfiction
E-mail: kenazfiction@gmail.com
Fic Journal: http://kenazfiction.livejournal.com/ or The Archive
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Borrowing the Good Professor's characters for my own amusement.
Archive: OEAM, Melethryn, The-Archive.net, others, just ask.
Feedback: of course!
Beta: Lady E
Summary: Life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
Click here for Chapter 8.
3019 Third Age, 14 Echuir
Twilight settled over the land, and in the darkening sky the Evenstar rose, though other stars were slow to reveal themselves, as if they would keep wrapped in the night-mantle of grief, hidden from the eyes of Elves and Men, casting deep shadows across the green places of the land.
Haldir had followed his Lord to the trees standing just beyond the girdling hedges of the glade. Strange, he thought, that the way to this place should appear to him so clearly now, found at the end of a simple pathway like any other, when ever before it had seemed veiled from prying eyes, sequestered from the view of all but the masters of this place and those they would summon.
The brook tripping down from the fountain sang and trilled, and for such a gay sound, Haldir liked it not at all; he remembered all to well the mordant laughter of the water. He felt the pang in his gut reminding him he had not eaten this day, save for the hunk of dark bread with which he had broken fast early that morning. He had been too overstrung to eat, too tightly wound by the knowledge of his mission to fill his stomach with anything other than the cold dread residing there already. Now that the time was upon him, he wished only to turn aside. His very presence here, bow in hand, profaned the glade, and brought the threat of bloodshed to a place where blood had once been willingly offered as covenant.
Celeborn was silent as a specter, moving with grace and stealth as he took his place on the broad branch of an oak whose leafy limbs stretched high above the hedgerow, affording a clear shot into the dell whilst offering concealment. His silver hair shone coldly in the dying light, a precursor to the moon not yet risen. Haldir moved further around the halo of trees to his own perch, and with an uneasy heart, he took his stance.
At length, the Lady appeared, tall and white and fair, and it seemed a great weariness sat upon her brow and her light was muted. Behind her, the Ringbearer and his companion followed on curious yet cautious feet. As she filled the basin and sent her breath across its silvery surface, Haldir shivered, for the memory of his own vision was still as vivid in his mind as if he had lived it in the flesh, and the brutality of it did not lessen with the recollection, but only grew. He turned his head but slightly to espy his Lord crouched on his branch, bow in hand but no arrow yet drawn, and if the Lady's face seemed weary, Celeborn's was nearly grey with sorrow, though the set of his features remained expressionless as a mask.
Samwise Gamgee stepped up to the basin and peered over the edge. After a few moments, his eyes widened and his mouth flew open, aghast at the tale now revealing itself to him, and he began to shout in anger about devilry run amok in the Shire.
Oh, young Perian… it is not merely in the Shire that devilry works. You need only to turn your curly head to see the evil in your midst.
When the portly Halfling stepped away, Celeborn drew a bolt from his quiver and nocked it on the string, and Haldir did likewise. The Lady spoke kindly to Sam, and her words sang forth from her lips slowly and clearly.
"Remember the Mirror shows us many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them."
Haldir felt the incorporeal brush of her touch across his mind. The Lady knew he was there. She knew, then, of his task; knew the reason for his hidden presence. He wanted to weep. Yet it seemed to him in that moment that the distant touch was a caress. Of course she knew! What a fool was he to think otherwise. Celeborn did not undertake this awful charge in secrecy, but had sought her blessing in it and received it. She was speaking now, he understood, not only to the Halflings, but also to him, and with these words so darkly delivered, her crystalline blue gaze rose to the trees and locked with his, though he well knew he was deeply obscured by the cover of the leaves:
"The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds."
The words sent a shudder through him, so ominous they felt to him. Her eyes returned to the Halflings, benevolent and wise. "Seeing is both good and perilous," she enjoined, and for good or ill, Frodo of the Shire stepped forward to the Mirror to face whatever horrors awaited him beneath its placid surface. Dire those images must have been indeed, for his whole body shook when at last the Mirror released him from its treacherous clutch, and a fine sheen of sweat stood out across his brow.
So he has seen, Celeborn thought grimly. He knows the futility of his task. He has seen the Eye that seeks him, and will find him-find us all-- anon. His fingertips curled around his bowstring.
The Halfling brought out a slender chain from within his shirt and pulled it over his tousled head. A golden light glinted faintly from the ring that hung on its links. Haldir was surprised to see that it was so simple, so plain in its design. Frodo's voice was small and tremulous, but the Elf-Lord and his Marchwarden heard his words as if he shouted them with all his might.
"I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me."
Celeborn of Lorien drew back his bow. His hand did not tremble as he trained the shaft on the milk-pale skin of his wife's breast. Oh, that most beloved flesh! Her laughter rang out through the grove, and it was not a joyous sound but one of anguish.
"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask for what you offer. For many long years I pondered what I might do should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! It was brought within my grasp."
Galadriel's hand hovered over the Halfling's, and Haldir saw its slight tremor. Fingers that had seemed so warm and strong when he had held them within his own to deliver his pledge long ago now seemed painfully thin and delicate. Haldir pulled in a slow breath and took aim, sending a silent plea to the night sky and all who might be listening in that firmament that he would not need to loose his shot.
"You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night!"
And as she spoke, so she became. With the awesome violence of a summer storm, a blinding white light shot from Nenya's adamant stone, and she who bore that ring appeared before them now a thing of otherworldly and seductive beauty and ineffable potency, exquisite and horrible to behold.
Every hair on Haldir's body rose to standing, as if a lightning strike had sent its frisson through the air of the glade. But even so, he did not move, he did not breathe; he marveled, in fact, that it should be so easy… that the uncounted years of wielding this weapon would render the turning of it against a beloved friend a feat achieved with no more difficulty than to point it at an Orc, or to take down a fleeing bit of game. Should he not have found it harder to do this? The smell of leather curled in his nostrils from the well-worn tabs on his fingers, the string poised and anchored a hair's breadth from the corner of his mouth.
"I shall be stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"
Celeborn, too, held his aim steady. It would have been nothing at all to release now and speed that bolt to its target, so perfectly balanced was that string against his fingers, so much energy coiled and ready behind the white fletching of his arrow, irrevocable death pulling at his fingertips.
But Galadriel's hand fell away, and the light receded, and with it the awful vision of Nerwen the Dread and Fair until all that stood before them were two shivering Halflings and a wan and stately Elf-Lady with a beatific smile.
"I pass the test," she said, and there was as much melancholy in her voice as relief. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."
Haldir slid his arrow from the string and slipped it back into his quiver, his uneasiness corralled but not yet fled. His Lord had already unstrung his bow and sat unmoving, unblinking, on the limb with dark leaves dancing all around him in the slight breeze only now appearing, watching in silence.
"It was enough. In the end, it was enough," he whispered tautly, his eyes glittering with unfathomable emotion. Haldir was unsure if the remark had been addressed to him.
"What was, híren?"
Celeborn slowly turned his head to look upon the Marchwarden, his ageless face flickered first with pity, then with and concern and even disbelief, salted perhaps, by the smallest hint of anger.
"Her love for me. And mine for her."
3019 Third Age, 36 Echuir
The weeks following the departure of the Fellowship had swiftly turned. Haldir was glad to see the backs of them and guided them to the borders with much greater grace than he had afforded them on their advent. The return shortly thereafter of Mithrandir on the back of Gwaihir the Wind-Lord-the Grey Pilgrim now revealed as Gandalf the White-occasioned much joy in a time when there was little else to celebrate.
Yet though white was now the color of his beard and raiment, Gandalf brought a storm-crow's grey tidings and his wise eyes held great grief, though his news was nothing Celeborn and his Lady had not already surmised: The passage of the Fellowship had not gone unnoticed; Dol Guldur was marshalling its forces and the attack they feared was imminent. The Galadhrim would not be caught unawares; Celeborn and Haldir drew up their plans and sent a few trusted scouts to the North, West and South to see what other movements of the enemy they could discern; Caras Galadhon prepared to close its gates around its denizens. The wardens of the Golden Wood made ready for war.
Haldir had returned briefly to the talan he now shared with a grieving Orophin, whose wife and vintner son had chosen to depart with a band of Elves who sought the shelter of the Blessed Realm. Their vineyards had been all but obliterated under Dol Guldur's last siege, and Alquonís could not bear to see it fall again. Bitterly, the little family had drunk the cup of parting, with Orophin promising to join them in Aman as soon as their battles were won. Haldir took note that they never once spoke of failure or loss, or of the possibility that Orophin might only return to them by way of the Halls of Mandos. All the same, Orophin was bereft at their departure, and Haldir knew no words to comfort him. The shadows beneath his eyes harkened back to the long road they walked together in their youth, returning fatherless from Mordor. Haldir felt shamed by inadequacy; he had known no words to assuage his brother's pangs then, either.
As a parting gift, Ethuilion, his dear nephew, had gifted him with a small wooden soldier, the very one Haldir had left for him in the little brush-fort by the laughing stream when he was but a babe. Time had worn him nearly smooth and his tiny bow had long ago broken away leaving him standing with an empty fist, but all the same it was a most precious gift, a memory of many childhoods, not only Ethuilion's but his own and Orophin's. Through all that growth and change, the little soldier reminded him that the woods remained. And on the morrow, he and his brothers would return to the borders and take up sword and bow to watch over the enduring forest and its folk until either victory or ruin came. Once the last of the wardens departed, the gates of the city would close for good, to open again only for peace or the direst need.
Feeling pensive and at loose ends, Haldir at last swallowed his pride and sought Galion. The healer had refused his visits thrice before and he had not made any further attempt at contact since the Fellowship had arrived.
His soul ached. The sense of loss, of emptiness in his heart and a muting of his very spirit, grew sharper each day, not lesser. Even if the healer would not deign to speak with him, perhaps the relentless ache within might abate, if only slightly, if only Haldir could see him, see that he was well. Oh, it was a stunning lie, for he knew he could not more look upon Galion without wishing to speak to him than he could look upon a fine bubbling spring and not yearn to taste of its waters.
He spied upon the talan from a distance, wondering if the impudent scribe was within, coyly crowing his triumphant return to Galion's bed. The thought of it made him hot with anger, every muscle in his strapping frame tensing at the unwanted visions pervading his mind, and worse, the knowledge that if such were indeed the case, he had only himself to look to for the blame. He rallied, climbed the ladder, and when no response met his knocking, he let himself inside.
Empty. The talan was empty.
The couch still stood, aye, and the table and chairs, and he could see the corner of the bed frame in the room beyond, but this place was no longer inhabited. Gone, the clothes from the wardrobe and the linens from the bed. Gone, too, the contents of the cabinets in the kitchen: no herbs, no wine, nor goblets, nor dishes. And most distressing of all, no books. Not a single tome remained on the shelves. No tiny chapbooks, no oversized histories… just a thin line of dust to mark where their bindings had stood upon the planks. The shelves that lined the length of the wall were utterly bare.
Bare, save only one thing: a round, grey river stone sat unwanted and alone on the otherwise empty shelves. He took it in his hands and stared, heartsick, for its abandonment meant only one thing: Galion was gone. He was gone, with no notice, with no word, without even the most perfunctory note to mark his departure. He lowered himself to the couch and simply stared at the floor. Was he such a black figure, then, that nigh a century of devoted loving and uncounted years of sworn brotherhood did not merit even the most curt of farewells? Had he behaved so abominably in their parting that Galion would indeed cut their bonds to the quick and leave the land of his birth without so much as a backward glance? Curse it, he had done no more than what was demanded of him! The Mirror had shown him no alternative!
All at once, the stew of loneliness and guilt and betrayal and remorse fused together within him in a white-hot alloy of rage. The sounds of despair clawing their way out of his chest rang out discordantly in the empty chamber. With a wounded roar, he leapt to his feet and hurled the rock as hard as he could and heard the vaguely satisfying crack as it broke through the latticework of the screen in the window and disappeared.
Later, Orophin, whose heart still grieved its own loss, offered only cold comfort and a half-hearted shrug.
"Come the morrow, Celeborn will employ you so entirely in his preparations that you will have little time to dwell."
Under the circumstances, it was all he could think to say.
3019 Third Age, 40 Echuir
Deep in the woods, the war drums echoed. The children of the forest would not walk to their fates in silence, and it seemed even the trees kept time, dipping their branches in cadence with the martial throb, the shadow of their leaves a shifting filigree on the fair faces of the Galadhrim who journeyed to the borders in the gilded light of dawn.
Haldir moved silently through the camp, surveying the men arrayed before him and beyond. They were an industrious lot, sharpening swords and hoisting barrels of arrows onto the archers' telain. Each kept to his task in palpable silence. Rúmil fletched arrows beside a small fire, using a broad stump for his table. Their eyes met and a faint smile played upon the younger's lips. The elder returned it, but his breath caught in his chest.
Celeborn will make of me a kinslayer yet, when my orders send them to their death before this night is through. May their souls forgive me.
He stopped by Rúmil's side, watching his brother's nimble fingers sliding cropped feathers into precise groves, tying them down tightly. His heart crawled into his throat as he recalled the sound of his brother's dying screams. Even though that fate had been averted, he could not help but to remember what might have come to pass, and how it would have broken him; to see Rúmil here before him drove the full impact of it home. He wanted at that moment to be a brother rather than a marchwarden, and two impulses warred within him: to take Rúmil and clasp him to his chest, imploring him to stay alert and safe, to stay alive...and the need to remain firm, with eyes front and shoulders squared, showing his men the true deportment of a leader.
A compromise, then: He reached down and stroked the golden head, over-warm from the nearness of the flames. His brother shifted toward him, never looking up. Long, tapering fingers let a feather fall that they might reach up, clasp Haldir's hand, and bring it down to rest on his own strong shoulder in a silent gesture of trust and love. With his brother's head inclined against him, Haldir kept his eyes forward and his chin up, and felt the deepening of his resolve. Blood would be shed on Lorien's soil; of that he had no doubt. But the Galadhrim would prevail.
The sound of new voices prompted him to look behind toward the path where now a bevy of green cloaks could be seen. Laden down with heavy packs of herbs and salves and bandages, the healers had arrived. The clench of Haldir's stomach was instantaneous and severe. Though he knew the one he sought would not be counted in their number, he could not help but to scan their faces in search of Galion; his absence still somehow came as both a disappointment and a surprise.
When the Master Healer finished his briefing, the healers hefted their burdens and splintered away two by two, heading for their stations throughout the wood. As the last of them began to move toward the eastern road, Haldir blinked and turned away. Abruptly, he turned back again and stared hard at the lately departing pair.
"Galion."
The Elf turned slowly, weighed down as he was by his pack, and said nothing, regarding Haldir with eyes of hyaline grey shining with sorrows. Haldir's heart hammered in his chest.
"You…"
The healer maintained his silence. He inclined his head, though whether that small nod was an acknowledgement or greeting or some other gesture entirely, Haldir could not say. And then his partner called to him, and he turned and was gone down the leaf-lined path.
It was all Haldir could do not to follow.
3019 Third Age, 41-42 Echuir
"Look at them."
Across the Anduin, the armies of Dol Guldur were mustering. The black tower rose up from Amon Lanc like a barbarous phallus and the creatures that swarmed its base appeared as nothing if not an oily slick of noisome seed. The din of their shouts and howls for Elvish blood were audible even at this distance, as was the banging of their pikes against their shields. Haldir spied not only Yrch, but men, and even trolls and wargs. Eru only knew what other base and nameless creatures lurked in their ranks. The night, when it came, would rise clear beneath the imperfect circle of a moon just past full, but already, even under the auspice of a hazy late-day sun, an ill omen was in the air, every living creature on its guard, waiting.
"They show their numbers. They seek to cow us with their size."
Feredir's arms remained crossed over his torso. "And are we cowed?"
Haldir snorted. "They have numbers, but they must assault directly. They have no cover, no place to hide, unless they retreat to the Dark Tower. We have the trees, and they will keep us. We have archers that would rival Duilin's swallows, and our height and range will serve us well. And we, along with our superior skill, have also the Lady's wards to protect us."
And we have Nenya's strength, so long as it holds. Would that I were at liberty to speak of it; it might hearten the men to know it now.
"They do not fear us, nor do they fear the Lady's magic."
"What is this?" Haldir laughed. "My own lieutenant doubts our strength? Let them come. Let them bring their malice. Lorien will break them on the Anduin's shores. They do not see our preparations; they think they will catch us unawares. Let them labor long under that illusion."
While the enemy shouted and cursed, the forces of Lorien were silent in their trees. No motion could be seen beyond the eaves. Had one stood at the foot of Dol Guldur and looked ahead to the West, only the treeline would they have seen. But within the woods, the wardens were ready. The archers had taken to their platforms, the pikers to their pits, and swordsmen marked the second line.
Feredir restively shifted his weight from foot to foot. "And what of the scouts? Have you heard word of what snares they lay for us elsewhere? You cannot believe they mean only to attack from the East."
Haldir angled his head toward his law-brother. "I have had no word yet. I know only that the East is where the bulk of their forces are gathered, and so for now it is on the East that I will fix my eyes. It will be a trying night, Feredir, make no mistake. But I cannot afford the luxury of doubt, nor can you. You have your own men to lead."
Feredir hissed out a sigh. "You have the right of it. I will gather them now and take them north of the Naith as you ordered. We will not be out of earshot of your patrol, and there will be no gaps in our lines. Not an inch of our borders will go unprotected, whether by ward or by sword. We learned that lesson hard from Tathalion's losses."
"Aye, we did. But in the Dark Days, we had not the Lady's strength to shield us. We are stronger. We are ready. This night is not that one."
A heavy sigh, and Feredir's arms dropped to his sides. "Nay, Captain. I fear this night is darker yet." He saluted the Marchwarden and turned away, jerking up the hood of his cloak as he walked.
Haldir refused to let Feredir's grim prediction unnerve him, not when Galion's unexpected appearance heartened him so. He stepped back into the trees and found a place where he might for a moment be alone. He pulled his sword from its sheath. His father had carried this blade to the very gates of Mordor. In Orophin's hands, it had dealt death in numbers too great to count. It served another son now, but the same cause. Freshly honed and oiled, it gleamed viciously in the moonlight. As he held it, he thought upon the words of his oath and silently recited them.
By root and by star, by the blood in my veins, in the presence of Iluvatar, I, Haldir, Son of Guilin, take this sword for Lothlorien, that I might safeguard all that lies within her borders with all that I possess, even unto the sacrifice of my immortal life. Let that life be forfeit should I ever forsake this oath.
Renewed in spirit as his oath was renewed, he felt compelled to speak the words aloud.
“By root and by star, by the blood in my veins, in the presence of Iluvatar, I, Haldir, Son of Guilin, take this sword for Lothlorien…"
As he spoke, his blood came alive within him and he felt potent, indestructible. By the time he recited the closing words, his voice had soared to a shout.
"…Let that life be forfeit should I ever forsake this oath!"
He looked down upon the blade and saw now that the inscription writ upon the metal was glowing with a pale blue light. The sword seemed to hum in his hands, its innate power unleashed by its keeper's fervid declarations.
Gurth a chyth-in-Lorien!
He brandished it high above his head, feeling the beat of his heart fall into synch with the distant drums. Death to the foes of Lorien!
When Khamûl's savage shriek rent the twilight, bringing on the threshing tail of its mount an uncanny moment of silence, Haldir knew his hour had come.
The battle began not with a massive surge, but with three tar-blackened rafts riding the current of the Anduin.
"They seek to startle the snake by beating down the grass," Haldir grunted under his breath. This opening gambit was but a test to observe the Galadhrim's reactions and glean what they could about their defenses. Their actions now would determine the next move from Dol Guldur. The wardens at the point of the Naith scrambled to pull up the spike beds, but Haldir stayed them.
"Not yet. If they think the river unguarded, they will send a greater portion by water and we will reap a reward for our patience."
The Yrch landed their boats and, seeing no one to oppose them, made for the forest, howling with glee at the ease of their invasion. Those howls turned just as quickly to pain as the swordsmen stepped out of the shadows to cut them down one by one.
"Send a messenger to my Lord!" Haldir called to one of his men. If more ships were making ready up the Anduin, it would be a simple task to move armies over the river as well as down it, and an attack from the Gladden Fields would follow. Whether this night or in the nights to follow, they would be hit from the North as well as from the East.
In time, a greater fleet appeared, and not merely rafts but ships under sail, and only then did Haldir give the call to raise the spikes. It was as if Ulmo's own hand rose armored from the river's precipitous flow to rend the hulls of the advancing crafts and send the devious mariners into the deeps. The furious screams and splashes of the capsized rang out over the crack and crunch of splintering wood.
Meanwhile, the seething morass in the East had formed ranks and moved now toward the wood in formations like tortoise shells, with shield-bearers on all sides and even covering their heads. Like the creatures they emulated, they moved slowly, but were nearly impervious to the ranged weapons of the Wood, and Haldir warned the archers against wasting their shot until they came close enough for the Elves to see the narrow spaces left uncovered which afforded them a meager chance to take down a foe.
As the ships crashed against the barricades, mangled timber caught in the spikes and chains and likewise tangled the bodies of the drowned. When the cover of the archers afforded it, wardens with long pikes dashed to the water's edge and pushed free the accumulating debris so the Anduin would rush it away, but they could not clear the stoppage fast enough, and creatures who routinely cannibalized their fallen kin had no compunction about crossing a river on the corpses of their dead. When the well-armored clusters came nearer to the river, they did just that, the rear lines breaking away and making a run for the makeshift bridges. Though the archers picked them off with ease, their deaths only added mass to the obstruction and the lieutenants called for the spikes to be lowered once more.
Four of the gates descended easily enough, but the fifth was too clogged with bodies and wreckage to be moved, and one of the pikers sprinted out of the eaves to force it down by hand. Already, a line of Yrch had begun to move across. The warden looked at the approaching foemen and jumped onto the spike-gate with all his weight. It shuddered but did not fall. He jabbed his pike into a bloated black corpse wedged between the spikes and the shoreline, its gaping maw frozen wide in a death-scream. Many blows fell before the body was wrenched free, but the gate then collapsed immediately, sending the Yrch who had traversed half the span of the river into its flashing currents and away. The Elf, too, disappeared below the surface of the water and Haldir cursed. Some time later he would rejoice to find that the piker had managed to grab hold of a fistful of sailcloth that had caught up on the spikes and a keen-eyed comrade had spotted him flailing in the water and had thrown a line and hauled him out, exhausted and choking but very much alive.
The armored platoons that trod slowly over the impoverished soil eventually came to a halt along the river's edge, the front ranks parting to reveal crude onagers at the centers of their formation. These small siege engines each took four Yrch to crank the windlass.
"Balefire!"
Sweet Eru, the onagers would launch firepots into the wood! Curse Khamûl and his black soul! Balefire was all but impossible to extinguish, and the Lady's wards repelled only living things, not storms of fire pitched from the sky.
The Galadhrim let fly a round from the trees, but to limited effect, and no sooner had their arrows landed but the onagers kicked back mulishly and sent off a volley of their own, no fewer than three projectiles coming from every basket. One of the archers got off a shot as they flew, and the object popped wetly, landing with a squelching sound and forming a brackish puddle on the ground below. The rest sailed beyond them into the forest.
A warden leapt from a talan and darted off into the woods to discover what had been thrown, if not the dreaded balefire. A good distance away, he found it: a dark, translucent orb large enough to fill both his hands as he lifted it for examination. A queer black form writhed within and the Elf shuddered. He turned and called to his captain, his voice thick with revulsion.
"Ungol!"
These were not firepots, but eggs. Swollen, fetid eggs laid by the giant spiders infesting Mirkwood. Should they hatch and take up residence here, the Golden Wood would soon bear its own dark moniker.
"Find them all." Haldir's lips curled in disgust and he signaled for some of his men to join their comrade in his search for the malignant pearls. "Burn them."
Slowly, the night passed. He was infinitely grateful that their casualties were few, but no victory had been decisively claimed and Dol Guldur had not yet retreated. He felt poised, as he rode to the north marches, for some greater deed of malice. As yet, the enemy had merely circled and sniffed at their borders like a hungry cur; the great, toothy maw had yet to bear its fangs and sink them deep. Knowing this was but a tactic to keep them wary and unbalanced did little to alleviate his pervasive unease. Beneath him, his mount's long, rocking strides were so even and smooth he could almost forget how swiftly he traveled, and as the morning wore, he could see Feredir's patrol coming into view.
Night had not passed so easily in the North. Haldir felt the strange prickle on the back of his neck that told him he had crossed beyond the Lady's wards. A band of woodland stretched ahead before him, and the marshes of the Loeg Ningloron spread out beyond. It was in this gap that Feredir's men had been set upon by wargs, werewolves, and bands of Yrch. Haldir kept all of his border guards beyond the wards; Galadriel's magic would be their final defense, not their first. He would not have her expend herself when her wardens were so desirous of proving their own skill and valor. But though all had proved that skill and valor in the night, many had not lived to see the dawn. Haldir closed his eyes and sent up a silent valediction when passing the line of Galadhrim lying sill and silent beneath the grey shrouds of their cloaks.
"They mean to charge, and soonest," Feredir briefed him as he approached. A large force had gathered on the wetlands: Wargs and riders, Yrch, and men Haldir recognized by their dress and weapons as Easterlings.
"Bring more of your archers here and we will drive them west," Haldir ordered.
The piercing cry and the slow flapping of opaque, leathery wings moved a foul wind over the Marchwarden and his lieutenant as the Shadow of the East descended before them.
"Tell your Bitch-Queen to surrender, Elf. You have no chance of holding." The thin rasp of the Wraith pierced keen as a lance-blade and carried a frigidity on his razor tongue that seemed to pierce the core of all unfortunate enough to hear it, but Haldir faced him down and returned his threat with contempt.
"Fly back to your roost, snaga. She will not surrender, nor will we."
"Then you shall perish!"
With a roar, the assembled host flew forward toward the wood.
"Arrows!"
A salvo sang from the trees and a many of the raiders on the eastern flank fell. Those who remained scrambled toward the western edge of the field.
"Again!"
Another round of white-fletched fury and another hit to the eastern side. The foemen bellowed and pressed further to the west as they charged. A more desperate cry suddenly resounded in the field as those who tried to evade the rain of arrows from the east sank into the marshes, and unable to run, turned themselves into perfect targets. High in the trees, Rúmil bantered with Orophin, wagering the tally of his dead would be greatest by the battle's end.
"The fleet fingers of youth are no match for the skilled eye of experience," Orophin pithily retorted, and an Easterling sank into the fen with one of the elder brother's bolts planted square between his eyes.
As the line of the enemy narrowed, Feredir called his charge and his swordsmen took the field, harrying the dark army in the foothills, a mighty mithril hammer of Elven make crashing against an anvil of Hithaeglir's unyielding stone. Those who did not fall to the blade fell to the arrows of the sons of Guilin and their brothers-in-arms. Those who escaped with their lives howled their thrashing as they fled south. The screech of Khamûl's fell beast sounded like a resounding curse cast upon them as the Black Easterling rose out of range of the archers and up, up, till he was naught but a spot of filth against the clearing sky.
Haldir reveled in their triumph, though it had come on a tide of Elvish blood. Yet while some had died, the casualties were not as grim as any had feared, and this gave the Galadhrim much hope.
"Khamûl has fled," the Marchwarden told Celeborn, and though his features were appropriately composed, the Lord of Lorien could see the pride lingering around a mouth that clearly wished to crow. Would that he did not need to be the bearer of cautious admonition now, for a moment of celebration would have been a boon to all.
"He has conceded nothing. He flies to Minas Tirith; the Lady has seen it. He has left two of his lieutenants behind and they will continue to wreak havoc in his stead. This is not over, not by any means. This was little more than a feint. I sense there is far, far worse to come, Haldir."
Haldir's sanguine mien faltered only for a moment. "I did not imagine our victory would be handed to us without hardship. 'Tis grim news for us, and worse, I imagine, for Gondor. Yet if the Black Easterling goes south, it is because Sauron has not yet claimed victory there, is it not? The Ringbearer may yet live."
Celeborn nodded, letting a glimmer of hope sparkle in his ancient eyes that were so often shuttered against anything other than cool impassivity. "Frodo may yet live."
The Marchwarden toured the provisional infirmaries at the border and mourned over the bodies of the fallen which were even now being prepared for transport back to Caras Galadhon; the gates of the city would be opened to them one last time. He would not be able to return with them and see their final honors, so he offered his own lament alone.
It was there among the healers that he found Galion tending to the wounds of one of Feredir's swordsmen who had been viciously slashed as they pressed the Yrch army into the mountains.
"A moment, healer, if you would." He hated resorting to rank to bully Galion into an audience, but his desperation had forced him to use all means at his disposal. Galion merely nodded and returned to his task.
Later, he stepped away, beyond the tents and pavilions, and Haldir followed him.
"I thought you had abandoned me." It was not an auspicious opening, and Haldir cursed his impatient tongue ere it even ceased its rash wagging. Galion made a harsh noise in response.
"You have no call to speak of abandonment, mellon." The cool appellation stung like a slap and echoed like the insult it was. After a moment, Galion's expression thawed.
"I tried to leave. Merciful Eru, but I tried!"
Haldir moved closer, but not so close that Galion would balk. "Your quarters were empty. Everything was gone, all of it. Except…"
He looked up and his face was a mask of misery. "Forgive me, Galion, I was so angry… I was furious that you would leave me without a word. I threw away the river stone. I could not bear to see it sit alone on those empty shelves, chastising me."
The corner of Galion's mouth edged slyly upward in the beginning of an arch retort. "Yes, the hole in my screens did not go unnoticed. Good thing the rock was small."
A sound of sudden anguish forced its way through the constriction in Haldir's throat. "It was the first thing I ever gave you! It was a child's declaration of love when he did not yet have the words to speak it, and I threw it away in anger!"
It was hard to say whether there was more pity or annoyance in the healer's expression. "It was merely a rock, Haldir. Search the ground below the talan if it grieves you so much. It likely lies there still."
Haldir wanted to rail that Galion had missed the point entirely, but a glance at the healer's face told him to beware. He had indeed understood, but he wished not to speak of it. Chastened, Haldir cast his gaze back to the ground.
"Where do you stay, then, if your home stands empty? Where are your things?"
"My things are gone. I did not wish to delay the travelers by trying to sort out my own packs from theirs, so I returned only with what I carried and left the rest in Brethil's keeping."
"But your books!"
"Brethil, too, has achieved some passing skill in literacy," he quipped. "It seemed a fair exchange for his talan."
Haldir stiffened. "You stay in the scribe's home now."
"It is no longer his home; he has gone. It is my home now. It is small and close to the healing houses and it comes with no painful memories. Do not rebuke me, Haldir. Do not dare."
There was as much despondence and loneliness in his voice as anger, and this unduly gave Haldir hope.
"I do not! Not at all! How can I rebuke you when you returned for me?"
Galion turned with such sudden force that Haldir's arms reflexively started as if to fend off a blow.
"I did not return for you, Haldir!" Again, his face had gone cold and stark and unfamiliar. "I have my place in this battle, too, and I do not merely serve at your whim, Marchwarden." He left the glade quickly, and Haldir did not follow. The light in his heart that had gone undimmed since the end of the battle guttered and failed like a candle in the swift wind of Galion's departure.
Next chapter...
* * *
Echuir = 'Stirring.' The Sindarin name for the Elvish season that lay between modern 11 February and 5 April.
Perian = Hobbit (plural = Periannath)
Híren = My Lord
Telain = Plural of Talan, the tree-houses of the Galadhrim
Ungol = Spiders
Loeg Ningloron = The Gladden Fields
Snaga = Slave, especially a lesser Orc, in the Black Speech.
Mellon = Friend
A/N: As with the previous chapter, Galadriel's words are taken directly from canon text, FOTR, "The Mirror of Galadriel."
Nerwen ("Man-maiden") was the name given to Galadriel by her mother, Ëarwen, because of her height and her great strength of body and will. This seemed an appropriate description of Galadriel in her darker aspect.
Author: kenazfiction
E-mail: kenazfiction@gmail.com
Fic Journal: http://kenazfiction.livejournal.com/ or The Archive
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Borrowing the Good Professor's characters for my own amusement.
Archive: OEAM, Melethryn, The-Archive.net, others, just ask.
Feedback: of course!
Beta: Lady E
Summary: Life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
Click here for Chapter 8.
3019 Third Age, 14 Echuir
Twilight settled over the land, and in the darkening sky the Evenstar rose, though other stars were slow to reveal themselves, as if they would keep wrapped in the night-mantle of grief, hidden from the eyes of Elves and Men, casting deep shadows across the green places of the land.
Haldir had followed his Lord to the trees standing just beyond the girdling hedges of the glade. Strange, he thought, that the way to this place should appear to him so clearly now, found at the end of a simple pathway like any other, when ever before it had seemed veiled from prying eyes, sequestered from the view of all but the masters of this place and those they would summon.
The brook tripping down from the fountain sang and trilled, and for such a gay sound, Haldir liked it not at all; he remembered all to well the mordant laughter of the water. He felt the pang in his gut reminding him he had not eaten this day, save for the hunk of dark bread with which he had broken fast early that morning. He had been too overstrung to eat, too tightly wound by the knowledge of his mission to fill his stomach with anything other than the cold dread residing there already. Now that the time was upon him, he wished only to turn aside. His very presence here, bow in hand, profaned the glade, and brought the threat of bloodshed to a place where blood had once been willingly offered as covenant.
Celeborn was silent as a specter, moving with grace and stealth as he took his place on the broad branch of an oak whose leafy limbs stretched high above the hedgerow, affording a clear shot into the dell whilst offering concealment. His silver hair shone coldly in the dying light, a precursor to the moon not yet risen. Haldir moved further around the halo of trees to his own perch, and with an uneasy heart, he took his stance.
At length, the Lady appeared, tall and white and fair, and it seemed a great weariness sat upon her brow and her light was muted. Behind her, the Ringbearer and his companion followed on curious yet cautious feet. As she filled the basin and sent her breath across its silvery surface, Haldir shivered, for the memory of his own vision was still as vivid in his mind as if he had lived it in the flesh, and the brutality of it did not lessen with the recollection, but only grew. He turned his head but slightly to espy his Lord crouched on his branch, bow in hand but no arrow yet drawn, and if the Lady's face seemed weary, Celeborn's was nearly grey with sorrow, though the set of his features remained expressionless as a mask.
Samwise Gamgee stepped up to the basin and peered over the edge. After a few moments, his eyes widened and his mouth flew open, aghast at the tale now revealing itself to him, and he began to shout in anger about devilry run amok in the Shire.
Oh, young Perian… it is not merely in the Shire that devilry works. You need only to turn your curly head to see the evil in your midst.
When the portly Halfling stepped away, Celeborn drew a bolt from his quiver and nocked it on the string, and Haldir did likewise. The Lady spoke kindly to Sam, and her words sang forth from her lips slowly and clearly.
"Remember the Mirror shows us many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them."
Haldir felt the incorporeal brush of her touch across his mind. The Lady knew he was there. She knew, then, of his task; knew the reason for his hidden presence. He wanted to weep. Yet it seemed to him in that moment that the distant touch was a caress. Of course she knew! What a fool was he to think otherwise. Celeborn did not undertake this awful charge in secrecy, but had sought her blessing in it and received it. She was speaking now, he understood, not only to the Halflings, but also to him, and with these words so darkly delivered, her crystalline blue gaze rose to the trees and locked with his, though he well knew he was deeply obscured by the cover of the leaves:
"The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds."
The words sent a shudder through him, so ominous they felt to him. Her eyes returned to the Halflings, benevolent and wise. "Seeing is both good and perilous," she enjoined, and for good or ill, Frodo of the Shire stepped forward to the Mirror to face whatever horrors awaited him beneath its placid surface. Dire those images must have been indeed, for his whole body shook when at last the Mirror released him from its treacherous clutch, and a fine sheen of sweat stood out across his brow.
So he has seen, Celeborn thought grimly. He knows the futility of his task. He has seen the Eye that seeks him, and will find him-find us all-- anon. His fingertips curled around his bowstring.
The Halfling brought out a slender chain from within his shirt and pulled it over his tousled head. A golden light glinted faintly from the ring that hung on its links. Haldir was surprised to see that it was so simple, so plain in its design. Frodo's voice was small and tremulous, but the Elf-Lord and his Marchwarden heard his words as if he shouted them with all his might.
"I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me."
Celeborn of Lorien drew back his bow. His hand did not tremble as he trained the shaft on the milk-pale skin of his wife's breast. Oh, that most beloved flesh! Her laughter rang out through the grove, and it was not a joyous sound but one of anguish.
"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask for what you offer. For many long years I pondered what I might do should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! It was brought within my grasp."
Galadriel's hand hovered over the Halfling's, and Haldir saw its slight tremor. Fingers that had seemed so warm and strong when he had held them within his own to deliver his pledge long ago now seemed painfully thin and delicate. Haldir pulled in a slow breath and took aim, sending a silent plea to the night sky and all who might be listening in that firmament that he would not need to loose his shot.
"You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night!"
And as she spoke, so she became. With the awesome violence of a summer storm, a blinding white light shot from Nenya's adamant stone, and she who bore that ring appeared before them now a thing of otherworldly and seductive beauty and ineffable potency, exquisite and horrible to behold.
Every hair on Haldir's body rose to standing, as if a lightning strike had sent its frisson through the air of the glade. But even so, he did not move, he did not breathe; he marveled, in fact, that it should be so easy… that the uncounted years of wielding this weapon would render the turning of it against a beloved friend a feat achieved with no more difficulty than to point it at an Orc, or to take down a fleeing bit of game. Should he not have found it harder to do this? The smell of leather curled in his nostrils from the well-worn tabs on his fingers, the string poised and anchored a hair's breadth from the corner of his mouth.
"I shall be stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"
Celeborn, too, held his aim steady. It would have been nothing at all to release now and speed that bolt to its target, so perfectly balanced was that string against his fingers, so much energy coiled and ready behind the white fletching of his arrow, irrevocable death pulling at his fingertips.
But Galadriel's hand fell away, and the light receded, and with it the awful vision of Nerwen the Dread and Fair until all that stood before them were two shivering Halflings and a wan and stately Elf-Lady with a beatific smile.
"I pass the test," she said, and there was as much melancholy in her voice as relief. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."
Haldir slid his arrow from the string and slipped it back into his quiver, his uneasiness corralled but not yet fled. His Lord had already unstrung his bow and sat unmoving, unblinking, on the limb with dark leaves dancing all around him in the slight breeze only now appearing, watching in silence.
"It was enough. In the end, it was enough," he whispered tautly, his eyes glittering with unfathomable emotion. Haldir was unsure if the remark had been addressed to him.
"What was, híren?"
Celeborn slowly turned his head to look upon the Marchwarden, his ageless face flickered first with pity, then with and concern and even disbelief, salted perhaps, by the smallest hint of anger.
"Her love for me. And mine for her."
3019 Third Age, 36 Echuir
The weeks following the departure of the Fellowship had swiftly turned. Haldir was glad to see the backs of them and guided them to the borders with much greater grace than he had afforded them on their advent. The return shortly thereafter of Mithrandir on the back of Gwaihir the Wind-Lord-the Grey Pilgrim now revealed as Gandalf the White-occasioned much joy in a time when there was little else to celebrate.
Yet though white was now the color of his beard and raiment, Gandalf brought a storm-crow's grey tidings and his wise eyes held great grief, though his news was nothing Celeborn and his Lady had not already surmised: The passage of the Fellowship had not gone unnoticed; Dol Guldur was marshalling its forces and the attack they feared was imminent. The Galadhrim would not be caught unawares; Celeborn and Haldir drew up their plans and sent a few trusted scouts to the North, West and South to see what other movements of the enemy they could discern; Caras Galadhon prepared to close its gates around its denizens. The wardens of the Golden Wood made ready for war.
Haldir had returned briefly to the talan he now shared with a grieving Orophin, whose wife and vintner son had chosen to depart with a band of Elves who sought the shelter of the Blessed Realm. Their vineyards had been all but obliterated under Dol Guldur's last siege, and Alquonís could not bear to see it fall again. Bitterly, the little family had drunk the cup of parting, with Orophin promising to join them in Aman as soon as their battles were won. Haldir took note that they never once spoke of failure or loss, or of the possibility that Orophin might only return to them by way of the Halls of Mandos. All the same, Orophin was bereft at their departure, and Haldir knew no words to comfort him. The shadows beneath his eyes harkened back to the long road they walked together in their youth, returning fatherless from Mordor. Haldir felt shamed by inadequacy; he had known no words to assuage his brother's pangs then, either.
As a parting gift, Ethuilion, his dear nephew, had gifted him with a small wooden soldier, the very one Haldir had left for him in the little brush-fort by the laughing stream when he was but a babe. Time had worn him nearly smooth and his tiny bow had long ago broken away leaving him standing with an empty fist, but all the same it was a most precious gift, a memory of many childhoods, not only Ethuilion's but his own and Orophin's. Through all that growth and change, the little soldier reminded him that the woods remained. And on the morrow, he and his brothers would return to the borders and take up sword and bow to watch over the enduring forest and its folk until either victory or ruin came. Once the last of the wardens departed, the gates of the city would close for good, to open again only for peace or the direst need.
Feeling pensive and at loose ends, Haldir at last swallowed his pride and sought Galion. The healer had refused his visits thrice before and he had not made any further attempt at contact since the Fellowship had arrived.
His soul ached. The sense of loss, of emptiness in his heart and a muting of his very spirit, grew sharper each day, not lesser. Even if the healer would not deign to speak with him, perhaps the relentless ache within might abate, if only slightly, if only Haldir could see him, see that he was well. Oh, it was a stunning lie, for he knew he could not more look upon Galion without wishing to speak to him than he could look upon a fine bubbling spring and not yearn to taste of its waters.
He spied upon the talan from a distance, wondering if the impudent scribe was within, coyly crowing his triumphant return to Galion's bed. The thought of it made him hot with anger, every muscle in his strapping frame tensing at the unwanted visions pervading his mind, and worse, the knowledge that if such were indeed the case, he had only himself to look to for the blame. He rallied, climbed the ladder, and when no response met his knocking, he let himself inside.
Empty. The talan was empty.
The couch still stood, aye, and the table and chairs, and he could see the corner of the bed frame in the room beyond, but this place was no longer inhabited. Gone, the clothes from the wardrobe and the linens from the bed. Gone, too, the contents of the cabinets in the kitchen: no herbs, no wine, nor goblets, nor dishes. And most distressing of all, no books. Not a single tome remained on the shelves. No tiny chapbooks, no oversized histories… just a thin line of dust to mark where their bindings had stood upon the planks. The shelves that lined the length of the wall were utterly bare.
Bare, save only one thing: a round, grey river stone sat unwanted and alone on the otherwise empty shelves. He took it in his hands and stared, heartsick, for its abandonment meant only one thing: Galion was gone. He was gone, with no notice, with no word, without even the most perfunctory note to mark his departure. He lowered himself to the couch and simply stared at the floor. Was he such a black figure, then, that nigh a century of devoted loving and uncounted years of sworn brotherhood did not merit even the most curt of farewells? Had he behaved so abominably in their parting that Galion would indeed cut their bonds to the quick and leave the land of his birth without so much as a backward glance? Curse it, he had done no more than what was demanded of him! The Mirror had shown him no alternative!
All at once, the stew of loneliness and guilt and betrayal and remorse fused together within him in a white-hot alloy of rage. The sounds of despair clawing their way out of his chest rang out discordantly in the empty chamber. With a wounded roar, he leapt to his feet and hurled the rock as hard as he could and heard the vaguely satisfying crack as it broke through the latticework of the screen in the window and disappeared.
Later, Orophin, whose heart still grieved its own loss, offered only cold comfort and a half-hearted shrug.
"Come the morrow, Celeborn will employ you so entirely in his preparations that you will have little time to dwell."
Under the circumstances, it was all he could think to say.
3019 Third Age, 40 Echuir
Deep in the woods, the war drums echoed. The children of the forest would not walk to their fates in silence, and it seemed even the trees kept time, dipping their branches in cadence with the martial throb, the shadow of their leaves a shifting filigree on the fair faces of the Galadhrim who journeyed to the borders in the gilded light of dawn.
Haldir moved silently through the camp, surveying the men arrayed before him and beyond. They were an industrious lot, sharpening swords and hoisting barrels of arrows onto the archers' telain. Each kept to his task in palpable silence. Rúmil fletched arrows beside a small fire, using a broad stump for his table. Their eyes met and a faint smile played upon the younger's lips. The elder returned it, but his breath caught in his chest.
Celeborn will make of me a kinslayer yet, when my orders send them to their death before this night is through. May their souls forgive me.
He stopped by Rúmil's side, watching his brother's nimble fingers sliding cropped feathers into precise groves, tying them down tightly. His heart crawled into his throat as he recalled the sound of his brother's dying screams. Even though that fate had been averted, he could not help but to remember what might have come to pass, and how it would have broken him; to see Rúmil here before him drove the full impact of it home. He wanted at that moment to be a brother rather than a marchwarden, and two impulses warred within him: to take Rúmil and clasp him to his chest, imploring him to stay alert and safe, to stay alive...and the need to remain firm, with eyes front and shoulders squared, showing his men the true deportment of a leader.
A compromise, then: He reached down and stroked the golden head, over-warm from the nearness of the flames. His brother shifted toward him, never looking up. Long, tapering fingers let a feather fall that they might reach up, clasp Haldir's hand, and bring it down to rest on his own strong shoulder in a silent gesture of trust and love. With his brother's head inclined against him, Haldir kept his eyes forward and his chin up, and felt the deepening of his resolve. Blood would be shed on Lorien's soil; of that he had no doubt. But the Galadhrim would prevail.
The sound of new voices prompted him to look behind toward the path where now a bevy of green cloaks could be seen. Laden down with heavy packs of herbs and salves and bandages, the healers had arrived. The clench of Haldir's stomach was instantaneous and severe. Though he knew the one he sought would not be counted in their number, he could not help but to scan their faces in search of Galion; his absence still somehow came as both a disappointment and a surprise.
When the Master Healer finished his briefing, the healers hefted their burdens and splintered away two by two, heading for their stations throughout the wood. As the last of them began to move toward the eastern road, Haldir blinked and turned away. Abruptly, he turned back again and stared hard at the lately departing pair.
"Galion."
The Elf turned slowly, weighed down as he was by his pack, and said nothing, regarding Haldir with eyes of hyaline grey shining with sorrows. Haldir's heart hammered in his chest.
"You…"
The healer maintained his silence. He inclined his head, though whether that small nod was an acknowledgement or greeting or some other gesture entirely, Haldir could not say. And then his partner called to him, and he turned and was gone down the leaf-lined path.
It was all Haldir could do not to follow.
3019 Third Age, 41-42 Echuir
"Look at them."
Across the Anduin, the armies of Dol Guldur were mustering. The black tower rose up from Amon Lanc like a barbarous phallus and the creatures that swarmed its base appeared as nothing if not an oily slick of noisome seed. The din of their shouts and howls for Elvish blood were audible even at this distance, as was the banging of their pikes against their shields. Haldir spied not only Yrch, but men, and even trolls and wargs. Eru only knew what other base and nameless creatures lurked in their ranks. The night, when it came, would rise clear beneath the imperfect circle of a moon just past full, but already, even under the auspice of a hazy late-day sun, an ill omen was in the air, every living creature on its guard, waiting.
"They show their numbers. They seek to cow us with their size."
Feredir's arms remained crossed over his torso. "And are we cowed?"
Haldir snorted. "They have numbers, but they must assault directly. They have no cover, no place to hide, unless they retreat to the Dark Tower. We have the trees, and they will keep us. We have archers that would rival Duilin's swallows, and our height and range will serve us well. And we, along with our superior skill, have also the Lady's wards to protect us."
And we have Nenya's strength, so long as it holds. Would that I were at liberty to speak of it; it might hearten the men to know it now.
"They do not fear us, nor do they fear the Lady's magic."
"What is this?" Haldir laughed. "My own lieutenant doubts our strength? Let them come. Let them bring their malice. Lorien will break them on the Anduin's shores. They do not see our preparations; they think they will catch us unawares. Let them labor long under that illusion."
While the enemy shouted and cursed, the forces of Lorien were silent in their trees. No motion could be seen beyond the eaves. Had one stood at the foot of Dol Guldur and looked ahead to the West, only the treeline would they have seen. But within the woods, the wardens were ready. The archers had taken to their platforms, the pikers to their pits, and swordsmen marked the second line.
Feredir restively shifted his weight from foot to foot. "And what of the scouts? Have you heard word of what snares they lay for us elsewhere? You cannot believe they mean only to attack from the East."
Haldir angled his head toward his law-brother. "I have had no word yet. I know only that the East is where the bulk of their forces are gathered, and so for now it is on the East that I will fix my eyes. It will be a trying night, Feredir, make no mistake. But I cannot afford the luxury of doubt, nor can you. You have your own men to lead."
Feredir hissed out a sigh. "You have the right of it. I will gather them now and take them north of the Naith as you ordered. We will not be out of earshot of your patrol, and there will be no gaps in our lines. Not an inch of our borders will go unprotected, whether by ward or by sword. We learned that lesson hard from Tathalion's losses."
"Aye, we did. But in the Dark Days, we had not the Lady's strength to shield us. We are stronger. We are ready. This night is not that one."
A heavy sigh, and Feredir's arms dropped to his sides. "Nay, Captain. I fear this night is darker yet." He saluted the Marchwarden and turned away, jerking up the hood of his cloak as he walked.
Haldir refused to let Feredir's grim prediction unnerve him, not when Galion's unexpected appearance heartened him so. He stepped back into the trees and found a place where he might for a moment be alone. He pulled his sword from its sheath. His father had carried this blade to the very gates of Mordor. In Orophin's hands, it had dealt death in numbers too great to count. It served another son now, but the same cause. Freshly honed and oiled, it gleamed viciously in the moonlight. As he held it, he thought upon the words of his oath and silently recited them.
By root and by star, by the blood in my veins, in the presence of Iluvatar, I, Haldir, Son of Guilin, take this sword for Lothlorien, that I might safeguard all that lies within her borders with all that I possess, even unto the sacrifice of my immortal life. Let that life be forfeit should I ever forsake this oath.
Renewed in spirit as his oath was renewed, he felt compelled to speak the words aloud.
“By root and by star, by the blood in my veins, in the presence of Iluvatar, I, Haldir, Son of Guilin, take this sword for Lothlorien…"
As he spoke, his blood came alive within him and he felt potent, indestructible. By the time he recited the closing words, his voice had soared to a shout.
"…Let that life be forfeit should I ever forsake this oath!"
He looked down upon the blade and saw now that the inscription writ upon the metal was glowing with a pale blue light. The sword seemed to hum in his hands, its innate power unleashed by its keeper's fervid declarations.
Gurth a chyth-in-Lorien!
He brandished it high above his head, feeling the beat of his heart fall into synch with the distant drums. Death to the foes of Lorien!
When Khamûl's savage shriek rent the twilight, bringing on the threshing tail of its mount an uncanny moment of silence, Haldir knew his hour had come.
The battle began not with a massive surge, but with three tar-blackened rafts riding the current of the Anduin.
"They seek to startle the snake by beating down the grass," Haldir grunted under his breath. This opening gambit was but a test to observe the Galadhrim's reactions and glean what they could about their defenses. Their actions now would determine the next move from Dol Guldur. The wardens at the point of the Naith scrambled to pull up the spike beds, but Haldir stayed them.
"Not yet. If they think the river unguarded, they will send a greater portion by water and we will reap a reward for our patience."
The Yrch landed their boats and, seeing no one to oppose them, made for the forest, howling with glee at the ease of their invasion. Those howls turned just as quickly to pain as the swordsmen stepped out of the shadows to cut them down one by one.
"Send a messenger to my Lord!" Haldir called to one of his men. If more ships were making ready up the Anduin, it would be a simple task to move armies over the river as well as down it, and an attack from the Gladden Fields would follow. Whether this night or in the nights to follow, they would be hit from the North as well as from the East.
In time, a greater fleet appeared, and not merely rafts but ships under sail, and only then did Haldir give the call to raise the spikes. It was as if Ulmo's own hand rose armored from the river's precipitous flow to rend the hulls of the advancing crafts and send the devious mariners into the deeps. The furious screams and splashes of the capsized rang out over the crack and crunch of splintering wood.
Meanwhile, the seething morass in the East had formed ranks and moved now toward the wood in formations like tortoise shells, with shield-bearers on all sides and even covering their heads. Like the creatures they emulated, they moved slowly, but were nearly impervious to the ranged weapons of the Wood, and Haldir warned the archers against wasting their shot until they came close enough for the Elves to see the narrow spaces left uncovered which afforded them a meager chance to take down a foe.
As the ships crashed against the barricades, mangled timber caught in the spikes and chains and likewise tangled the bodies of the drowned. When the cover of the archers afforded it, wardens with long pikes dashed to the water's edge and pushed free the accumulating debris so the Anduin would rush it away, but they could not clear the stoppage fast enough, and creatures who routinely cannibalized their fallen kin had no compunction about crossing a river on the corpses of their dead. When the well-armored clusters came nearer to the river, they did just that, the rear lines breaking away and making a run for the makeshift bridges. Though the archers picked them off with ease, their deaths only added mass to the obstruction and the lieutenants called for the spikes to be lowered once more.
Four of the gates descended easily enough, but the fifth was too clogged with bodies and wreckage to be moved, and one of the pikers sprinted out of the eaves to force it down by hand. Already, a line of Yrch had begun to move across. The warden looked at the approaching foemen and jumped onto the spike-gate with all his weight. It shuddered but did not fall. He jabbed his pike into a bloated black corpse wedged between the spikes and the shoreline, its gaping maw frozen wide in a death-scream. Many blows fell before the body was wrenched free, but the gate then collapsed immediately, sending the Yrch who had traversed half the span of the river into its flashing currents and away. The Elf, too, disappeared below the surface of the water and Haldir cursed. Some time later he would rejoice to find that the piker had managed to grab hold of a fistful of sailcloth that had caught up on the spikes and a keen-eyed comrade had spotted him flailing in the water and had thrown a line and hauled him out, exhausted and choking but very much alive.
The armored platoons that trod slowly over the impoverished soil eventually came to a halt along the river's edge, the front ranks parting to reveal crude onagers at the centers of their formation. These small siege engines each took four Yrch to crank the windlass.
"Balefire!"
Sweet Eru, the onagers would launch firepots into the wood! Curse Khamûl and his black soul! Balefire was all but impossible to extinguish, and the Lady's wards repelled only living things, not storms of fire pitched from the sky.
The Galadhrim let fly a round from the trees, but to limited effect, and no sooner had their arrows landed but the onagers kicked back mulishly and sent off a volley of their own, no fewer than three projectiles coming from every basket. One of the archers got off a shot as they flew, and the object popped wetly, landing with a squelching sound and forming a brackish puddle on the ground below. The rest sailed beyond them into the forest.
A warden leapt from a talan and darted off into the woods to discover what had been thrown, if not the dreaded balefire. A good distance away, he found it: a dark, translucent orb large enough to fill both his hands as he lifted it for examination. A queer black form writhed within and the Elf shuddered. He turned and called to his captain, his voice thick with revulsion.
"Ungol!"
These were not firepots, but eggs. Swollen, fetid eggs laid by the giant spiders infesting Mirkwood. Should they hatch and take up residence here, the Golden Wood would soon bear its own dark moniker.
"Find them all." Haldir's lips curled in disgust and he signaled for some of his men to join their comrade in his search for the malignant pearls. "Burn them."
Slowly, the night passed. He was infinitely grateful that their casualties were few, but no victory had been decisively claimed and Dol Guldur had not yet retreated. He felt poised, as he rode to the north marches, for some greater deed of malice. As yet, the enemy had merely circled and sniffed at their borders like a hungry cur; the great, toothy maw had yet to bear its fangs and sink them deep. Knowing this was but a tactic to keep them wary and unbalanced did little to alleviate his pervasive unease. Beneath him, his mount's long, rocking strides were so even and smooth he could almost forget how swiftly he traveled, and as the morning wore, he could see Feredir's patrol coming into view.
Night had not passed so easily in the North. Haldir felt the strange prickle on the back of his neck that told him he had crossed beyond the Lady's wards. A band of woodland stretched ahead before him, and the marshes of the Loeg Ningloron spread out beyond. It was in this gap that Feredir's men had been set upon by wargs, werewolves, and bands of Yrch. Haldir kept all of his border guards beyond the wards; Galadriel's magic would be their final defense, not their first. He would not have her expend herself when her wardens were so desirous of proving their own skill and valor. But though all had proved that skill and valor in the night, many had not lived to see the dawn. Haldir closed his eyes and sent up a silent valediction when passing the line of Galadhrim lying sill and silent beneath the grey shrouds of their cloaks.
"They mean to charge, and soonest," Feredir briefed him as he approached. A large force had gathered on the wetlands: Wargs and riders, Yrch, and men Haldir recognized by their dress and weapons as Easterlings.
"Bring more of your archers here and we will drive them west," Haldir ordered.
The piercing cry and the slow flapping of opaque, leathery wings moved a foul wind over the Marchwarden and his lieutenant as the Shadow of the East descended before them.
"Tell your Bitch-Queen to surrender, Elf. You have no chance of holding." The thin rasp of the Wraith pierced keen as a lance-blade and carried a frigidity on his razor tongue that seemed to pierce the core of all unfortunate enough to hear it, but Haldir faced him down and returned his threat with contempt.
"Fly back to your roost, snaga. She will not surrender, nor will we."
"Then you shall perish!"
With a roar, the assembled host flew forward toward the wood.
"Arrows!"
A salvo sang from the trees and a many of the raiders on the eastern flank fell. Those who remained scrambled toward the western edge of the field.
"Again!"
Another round of white-fletched fury and another hit to the eastern side. The foemen bellowed and pressed further to the west as they charged. A more desperate cry suddenly resounded in the field as those who tried to evade the rain of arrows from the east sank into the marshes, and unable to run, turned themselves into perfect targets. High in the trees, Rúmil bantered with Orophin, wagering the tally of his dead would be greatest by the battle's end.
"The fleet fingers of youth are no match for the skilled eye of experience," Orophin pithily retorted, and an Easterling sank into the fen with one of the elder brother's bolts planted square between his eyes.
As the line of the enemy narrowed, Feredir called his charge and his swordsmen took the field, harrying the dark army in the foothills, a mighty mithril hammer of Elven make crashing against an anvil of Hithaeglir's unyielding stone. Those who did not fall to the blade fell to the arrows of the sons of Guilin and their brothers-in-arms. Those who escaped with their lives howled their thrashing as they fled south. The screech of Khamûl's fell beast sounded like a resounding curse cast upon them as the Black Easterling rose out of range of the archers and up, up, till he was naught but a spot of filth against the clearing sky.
Haldir reveled in their triumph, though it had come on a tide of Elvish blood. Yet while some had died, the casualties were not as grim as any had feared, and this gave the Galadhrim much hope.
"Khamûl has fled," the Marchwarden told Celeborn, and though his features were appropriately composed, the Lord of Lorien could see the pride lingering around a mouth that clearly wished to crow. Would that he did not need to be the bearer of cautious admonition now, for a moment of celebration would have been a boon to all.
"He has conceded nothing. He flies to Minas Tirith; the Lady has seen it. He has left two of his lieutenants behind and they will continue to wreak havoc in his stead. This is not over, not by any means. This was little more than a feint. I sense there is far, far worse to come, Haldir."
Haldir's sanguine mien faltered only for a moment. "I did not imagine our victory would be handed to us without hardship. 'Tis grim news for us, and worse, I imagine, for Gondor. Yet if the Black Easterling goes south, it is because Sauron has not yet claimed victory there, is it not? The Ringbearer may yet live."
Celeborn nodded, letting a glimmer of hope sparkle in his ancient eyes that were so often shuttered against anything other than cool impassivity. "Frodo may yet live."
The Marchwarden toured the provisional infirmaries at the border and mourned over the bodies of the fallen which were even now being prepared for transport back to Caras Galadhon; the gates of the city would be opened to them one last time. He would not be able to return with them and see their final honors, so he offered his own lament alone.
It was there among the healers that he found Galion tending to the wounds of one of Feredir's swordsmen who had been viciously slashed as they pressed the Yrch army into the mountains.
"A moment, healer, if you would." He hated resorting to rank to bully Galion into an audience, but his desperation had forced him to use all means at his disposal. Galion merely nodded and returned to his task.
Later, he stepped away, beyond the tents and pavilions, and Haldir followed him.
"I thought you had abandoned me." It was not an auspicious opening, and Haldir cursed his impatient tongue ere it even ceased its rash wagging. Galion made a harsh noise in response.
"You have no call to speak of abandonment, mellon." The cool appellation stung like a slap and echoed like the insult it was. After a moment, Galion's expression thawed.
"I tried to leave. Merciful Eru, but I tried!"
Haldir moved closer, but not so close that Galion would balk. "Your quarters were empty. Everything was gone, all of it. Except…"
He looked up and his face was a mask of misery. "Forgive me, Galion, I was so angry… I was furious that you would leave me without a word. I threw away the river stone. I could not bear to see it sit alone on those empty shelves, chastising me."
The corner of Galion's mouth edged slyly upward in the beginning of an arch retort. "Yes, the hole in my screens did not go unnoticed. Good thing the rock was small."
A sound of sudden anguish forced its way through the constriction in Haldir's throat. "It was the first thing I ever gave you! It was a child's declaration of love when he did not yet have the words to speak it, and I threw it away in anger!"
It was hard to say whether there was more pity or annoyance in the healer's expression. "It was merely a rock, Haldir. Search the ground below the talan if it grieves you so much. It likely lies there still."
Haldir wanted to rail that Galion had missed the point entirely, but a glance at the healer's face told him to beware. He had indeed understood, but he wished not to speak of it. Chastened, Haldir cast his gaze back to the ground.
"Where do you stay, then, if your home stands empty? Where are your things?"
"My things are gone. I did not wish to delay the travelers by trying to sort out my own packs from theirs, so I returned only with what I carried and left the rest in Brethil's keeping."
"But your books!"
"Brethil, too, has achieved some passing skill in literacy," he quipped. "It seemed a fair exchange for his talan."
Haldir stiffened. "You stay in the scribe's home now."
"It is no longer his home; he has gone. It is my home now. It is small and close to the healing houses and it comes with no painful memories. Do not rebuke me, Haldir. Do not dare."
There was as much despondence and loneliness in his voice as anger, and this unduly gave Haldir hope.
"I do not! Not at all! How can I rebuke you when you returned for me?"
Galion turned with such sudden force that Haldir's arms reflexively started as if to fend off a blow.
"I did not return for you, Haldir!" Again, his face had gone cold and stark and unfamiliar. "I have my place in this battle, too, and I do not merely serve at your whim, Marchwarden." He left the glade quickly, and Haldir did not follow. The light in his heart that had gone undimmed since the end of the battle guttered and failed like a candle in the swift wind of Galion's departure.
Next chapter...
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Echuir = 'Stirring.' The Sindarin name for the Elvish season that lay between modern 11 February and 5 April.
Perian = Hobbit (plural = Periannath)
Híren = My Lord
Telain = Plural of Talan, the tree-houses of the Galadhrim
Ungol = Spiders
Loeg Ningloron = The Gladden Fields
Snaga = Slave, especially a lesser Orc, in the Black Speech.
Mellon = Friend
A/N: As with the previous chapter, Galadriel's words are taken directly from canon text, FOTR, "The Mirror of Galadriel."
Nerwen ("Man-maiden") was the name given to Galadriel by her mother, Ëarwen, because of her height and her great strength of body and will. This seemed an appropriate description of Galadriel in her darker aspect.